Hi all, I'm wondering how many people participating here at the ISC forums are direct students of Swami Durgananda (aka Swami Sally). She really hits me where it counts and I would love to know more about people's experience of her and if there are student-groups that work on specific practices that she teaches. Many thanks, Michael

All, Easily the thing I love most about this forum is that you guys are so good at widening my perspective! I have so much gratitude for that! As I'm not a practicing member of any Christian community, it's a bit ridiculous to think that my thoughts and analyses could be accurate for others. Again, thanks for reminding me that there's a real ...

Hi everyone, I stepped away from the forums for a while and came back to find this lively thread. Great stuff! I attended part of the recent contempative Christian seminar and I came away from it feeling pretty distressed rather than excited. While the seminar itself was truly wonderful, so well organized and accomodating and full of incredible ...

Hi Mary, I really appreciate your wonderful thoughts on this. It's so encouraging to hear what's going on in the real world of Catholic community around these insights and practices. Thanks especially for the Sophia post. You've inspired me enough that I may even overcome my resistance to returning to Mass! As I continue my process, it occurs to ...

Balder, These are very engaging topics for me and that they also came up for you again points me to toward some kind of collective arising. On Centering Prayer and its relation to Buddhist meditations: I was trained in mahamudra more than dzogchen and the similarities between CP and mahamudra shamatha are apparent to me when I do the ...

Hi Balder, Your post made me realize that, to a large degree, what I've been doing in my personal contemplations is trying to understand and describe what's already happening, trying to get a clearer sense of a phenomenon already emerging and taking place, rather than trying to create something as a sort of project. I lose this ...

Hi Balder, Thanks for your thoughts. It seems many of us are contemplating these issues whether actively or passively. At least they're out there for discussion. balder: I've sort of wrestled with an ongoing attraction to the riches of that tradition that is often stymied by other elements in it that seem regressive or problematic to me.

Having been born and raised Catholic, my earliest and perhaps strongest imprints of the Mystery, the Divine, God, the Absolute are all rich with that cultural symbolism. Having turned to Buddhist tantra in my late teens and despite embracing that path almost exclusively for about 12 years, I experienced a stong energetic shift about 6 years ago ...

Hi Yotam, Juicy question... I only have time for a few quick thoughts, but I'd like to contemplate it more and come up with some clearer perspectives. As a Shambhala practitioner well-schooled on Chogyam Trungpa's notion of ''spiritual materialism'' I would say we might need to be careful how we use that term. What Trungpa had in mind, and what ...

Hello all, Wow! It's so great to see some fellow Buddhists interested in the same kind of questions about how our lineages might look in an Integral context. I'm a Shambhala practitioner, myself, but with a deep appreciation for Christian mysticism and the dialogue that's currently taking place in that arena. I have a few major challenges and ...